Wednesday, 15 April 2015

Game Design #41: Reactions Again - Types of Reaction

Reactions have lots of different triggers. Sometimes there's "degrees" of reaction. I.e. in 2HW's system you toss 2D6 vs a target number. Thus you can have a "great" reaction (2 pass), a "OK" one (1 pass) or a "bad" one (both fail).

"Defensive" or "natural" reactions. These are reactions that would occur naturally, without much thought and require no special orders. They are usually unlimited. Example: A unit comes under fire. It would be natural (and require no special orders from the commander) for them to fall back, or scatter into cover.
A defensive or passive reaction is anything that requires minimal training and comes naturally.
I.e I throw a ball at your head, you duck/put out your arm to deflect it.

"Aggressive" or "unnatural" reactions. These are reactions that you would have to be trained or ordered to do. This would not be the natural reaction of the average Joe Blo. They are limited.Example: A unit comes under fire. They calmly stand their ground, reloading their crossbows with arrows whizzing around them. Or perhaps they charge the shooters, into the face of a hail of fire.
A offensive reaction is something that would require forethought, training or an express instruction.
I.e. I throw a ball at your head, and you actually head it back, soccer style. That's not an instinctive response, but one my soccer students would do.

Why two different types? It's useful for toning down reactions. It also prevents the "reacting" side to take too many offensive or aggressive reactions. I mean, "reacting" should allow you to interfere with the enemy, but the active side with the initiative (or the "move") should actually have an advantage.

The difference
Well, natural reactions occur for free. There is no "cost" or special roll needed. They are unlimited. The sergeant doesn't have to tell his troops to hit the dirt when the Mg42 rakes their position. They'll just do it! They don't need to pass any special tests to do it - common sense applies.

Aggressive reactions are not free. You may have to pass a morale test, or perhaps forfeit your next activation. You won't always be able to perform them - they are limited. If the sergeant wanted the troops to rush the MG42, he WOULD have to issue an order - it's unlikely they would all run into a hail of gunfire "naturally." Perhaps they would fail a morale test and not even do it at all.

Okay, how would this play out?
In the context of my Mordhiem-Infinity theoretical game, here's how it might look. Each unit uses an "Action Point" to activate in its active turn, from a common pool.

Two things trigger a reaction -
(a) if a unit is fired at
(b) if an enemy unit moves/activates within 12"

As you can see, actions that cause harm to the opposing side are rationed (by drawing action points from their own turn). Maybe they'll even need a dice roll to even attempt an offensive reaction (i.e. archers need to pass a Discipline test to fire on enemy troops charging them, or they naturally fall back). You could even make units react depending on their type - Impetuous troops must always try to aggressively move towards enemy troops, and Skirmishers would need to pass a test or fall back passively.

I've previously used a variant of this in my Delta Vector homebrew space rules.

Ships can always make a defensive reaction - i.e. fire back/dodge/deploy decoys when fired upon (i.e. respond to direct attacks). These reactions were essentially limitless.

However if the reactee wants to initiate an attack (the enemy was simply moving within weapons range), it was an offensive reaction and the ship must pass a Crew Check. A failure means no more offensive reactions could be made and the ship was limited to defensive reactions only for the rest of the turn. The offensive reactions were thus limited/linked to crew skill.

There's Nothing New Under the Sun
I'm sure this has been done before, but I don't think I've seen it articulated distinctly which is why I've explored this in a bit more depth. Since reactions are actually an aspect of initiative/activation they impact in a significant way and are quite a broad topic.

Why divide reactions into different types? It helps tone down the impact of reactions.
The reacting (non-active) side can still move our of the way/avoid/respond to incoming fire, but it can't dominate the active side - the one with the initiative. One of the charges against reaction systems is that they encourage camping/passivity and this is one way to address this. Units can still take steps to preserve themselves, but if they want to blast an active unit across the map, it's gonna cost them.

I think the concept would have been better handled in the context of, well, context. Like the frequency and amount of reactions would differ with kinds of reactions, and the kind would vary with the expectations laid out by other parts of the game and the fluff that it represents. How do the reactions move the game forward? How do they fit into the interaction between the players, and what do they do to improve that interaction? Plus I think you should have addressed both voluntary and involuntary actions.

"I think the concept would have been better handled in the context of, well, context. Like the frequency and amount of reactions would differ with kinds of reactions, and the kind would vary with the expectations laid out by other parts of the game and the fluff that it represents. How do the reactions move the game forward? How do they fit into the interaction between the players, and what do they do to improve that interaction? "

I'm not actually sure what you're saying here.... can you give an example of what you mean for each?

All the post addresses is that reactions can be "toned down" by dividing them into reactions that severely disrupt opponents (and limiting them) and natural reactions a unit might take in self defence (and allowing these to be freely used.) I.e. having limited and unlimited reactions within a single game - something I don't see done often, if at all.

"Plus I think you should have addressed both voluntary and involuntary actions. "

The involuntary "units recoil when they lose melee" or "units flee when they take 50% casualties from melee" and various morale-related reactions has been around as long as wargaming has, and I wouldn't class them as being part of a modern "reaction system" per se, which is what I'm interested in.

If you're talking about a 2HW style roll where the reaction roll dictates to you what you must do, that's a system I dislike. By trying to reduce the player to a bystander we remove "decision points" instead of adding them. You might as well revert to IGOUGO and at least have the game play faster.

Involuntary reactions might include one player somehow narrowing the range of reactions available to their opponent, all the way to no choice at all, to challenging them to spend their existing options unwisely.

Which is where context comes in. Context in terms of fluff would dictate expectations of whether a unit can or should react to an opponent's actions. Context in terms of mechanical operations might mean that all reaction options available to a player are not only live options, but balanced options. Context in terms of how it moves the game forward might mean that a reaction, or potential reaction, would affect an opponent's decision to acts such that where Action A might precipitate Reactions B, C, and/or D.

Put another way, it might have been something to start with the broader context of what decisions you want players to make, in what order, and in what ways that help them make narrative sense of the game. Then narrow it down to managing expectations by dressing up reactions in the proper semantic model (trained vs untrained, natural vs unnatural, prepared/unprepared) so that the game moves along at a good clip, and the players don't stop to comment on any weird artifacts of the game's design.

Ah, I think I get you now. If I was to put it into questions, it'd be something like:

When should a unit react? (for that genre/background)How powerful should a reaction be? (to keep it balanced)What actions should trigger what reactions? (for that genre/background)

That's probably fuel for another, broader topic - this one was just breaking off one of the subheadings from the first post which isn't well explored in any rules I know of, and giving an example of what it might look like in a game, and why you might use it.

You could also have better trained troops that simply react better (with more freedom, decision, or like you say, aggression) than the rank and file. This way players know which enemy troops can use aggressive reactions and which cannot. This could create a lot of emergent play, specially in maneuvering and choosing your skirmishes with more care (or planning).

I like the idea of ADDING more choices. The problem is if reactions become restrictive and proscriptive, and remove decision points from the player. A bit like some 2HW games - after units move into contact, the dice, not the player, tend to determine the gameplay. That's automating things too much.

Adding a extra reactions as a special rule makes sense, as much as restricting units (i.e. skirmisher default to falling back from melee contact.)